Election Daze for Party Faithful

I want to be elected," screamed the Alice Cooper-like Kitty, but it wasn't post-Halloween syndrome or the local gubernatorial election that had the Furry One singing the Vincent Furnier-penned tune. A pal had pointed the Puss to a Financial Times article that quoted Google boss Eric Schmidt pontificating about how politicians still don't realize the potential of the Internet, and that within five years, politicos will be held accountable by "truth predictor" software that will let John Q. Public instantly check the accuracy of a candidate's facts and figures.

Having, alas, no more than the attention span of the average American voter, El Gato skatted off for some brews and baby backs with a beta testing babe. As Spence slurped salsa, his companion noted that the buzz was stronger than ever that Dell would produce a tablet PC for Microsoft's upcoming Vista release. Dell watchers suspect the company has a Vista-compatible tablet ready for the enterprise by the middle of 2007, said the Grimalkin's gal pal. As the fajita-loving Furball ordered another round, his boothmate asked if he'd heard about Seidai Software's FairGame. The software, available for free download online, lets users convert Apple iTune songs to an unprotected format, allowing multiple DRM-free copies of the tracks to be made by the user. "Are those fries of yours fair game?" asked the Katt, raiding his pal's plate.

Bzzrrrzzz! The sudden vibration of the Baron of Babble's BlackBerry brought forth an IM exchange with a crony who noted that Authentium, a security company that incurred Microsoft's wrath by announcing a bypass to Redmond's PatchGuard protection, has now issued a press release seeking Microsoft's certification for its "approach" to broach Redmond's security feature. Suddenly alone, the ill-mannered Mouser saw it was too late to patch up his lunch date.